His long-suffering wife Marigold went to the kitchen for a dishcloth to clean up the mess. “It was never a good idea for you to read the newspaper at the breakfast table when it was a paper. It’s an even worse idea now that it’s on the net,” she said.

Archibald pointed to the headline on the screen. “Prime Minister’s Secret: Exclusive Photos.” There were pictures of him, obviously taken surreptitiously, having dinner with Angela, shopping with Angela, being greeted by Angela at her front door.

“So come out and tell the truth, Arch,” Marigold said matter-of-factly. “Angela is your daughter from a previous relationship. You spend time with her because you’re her Dad and you care about her.”

“If that much comes out, how much before everything else comes out?”

“How bad would it be if it did come out?”

“How bad?” Archibald buried his head in his hands.

“So, you’re intersex. You live as a man now, but in the past you gave birth to a beautiful, intelligent, caring, daughter. You have the best of both worlds,” Marigold, as usual, missed the whole point.

“Intersex? You know the voters don’t know what that is. They think it’s some trendy left-wing social movement. The media will end up using the H-word.” He was pale, shaking.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Marigold replied. She took a sip of her own coffee before she added. “Hermaphrodite is just a word. It’s an ugly word, sure, but you’re the Prime Minister. No-one is going to chain you up and put you on display in a freak show. The world moves on. Society changes and people learn.”

“But I’m not going to be Prime Minister much longer am I? I’m in a catch 22. Either everyone believes I’m having an affair with an 20 year old, or they think I’m some kind of freak. Either way, the Party is going to decide I’m electoral poison. Murchessin’s been agitating for weeks. This will be all it takes for him to challenge in the Party Room. Goldie, I’m totally screwed.”

"You're doing it wrong and you're taking too long."
The voice in her head, it sang its old song.
"Your sister is smarter, your sister is bright,
If you were like her then you'd be all right."

"You're clumsy. You're lazy," the voice carried on.
Any hopes that I had for you are all gone.
I wish that your sister was the only one.
You're dull and you're boring. You're not even fun."

But this was unlike all of the times before.
This time she picked herself up off the floor.
She just didn't listen to all the voice said,
This time she answered the voice in her head.

"Mother you're gone, your time is not now
You just don't belong in my head anyhow,
You don't get to question, you don't get to judge,
You don't get to push, nor even to nudge."

"This life that I have, it's now all my own
And my sister 's got hers, now that she's grown
And neither of these is yours to control
So be quiet now and let loose your hold."

The voice was now quiet, the first time in her life.
She felt the freedom, the absence of strife.
She thankfully prayed to the heavens above,
And then called her sister, and sent her some love.

Have you ever envisioned yourself as a patron of the
arts, but don't have the money of a Medici? Patreon is the 21st
century way of sponsoring artists of all types. You can be a patron of my
writing for as little as $1 a month. Patrons will receive electronic copies of each new book I write.

I know I'm pathetic, but I still find it
exciting to see my books on the shelves
at my local library.

This is a sneak peek at the book I'm currently writing. "Hollywood Lied" is the working title, and here is the first draft of the first chapter.

Hollywood Lied - Chapter 1
by Iris Carden
It began with Mary Elizabeth Marsdensen. That was a name the whole world came to know, but only after she was dead.

She went to the emergency Department at Brisbane General Hospital on a busy Friday night. When the triage nurse, Adrian Hughes, asked what she was there for, Ms Marsdensen simply said: “I’m dead. What’s supposed to happen now? Do I go to the morgue or something?” She coughed, and looked pleadingly at the nurse.

Nurse Hughes took the obvious action. He called for the people in the white coats. Pink scrubs to be more accurate. That was the uniform of the nursing staff in the Mental Health Emergency Clinic at the time.

In MHEC there was some excitement about Ms Marsdensen’s arrival, after all Cotard’s Syndrome is very rare. The psychiatric registrar tried to explain to the new patient that she only believed she was dead. In reality she was quite alive. She very carefully explained that Ms Marsden had a neurological condition, and that she most likely had lesions in her frontal lobe. It could be treated with antidepressants and other mood modulating drugs. If the drugs didn’t work, there was always the option to use electro shock therapy, or to operate on the lesions when they were located. There was no need to worry. A few days in the psych unit, and Ms Marsdensen would be well on the way to recovery.

It was some hours before Ms Marsdensen persuaded a nurse to do what would have been done automatically if she’d been admitted for a physical, rather than mental, illness: to take her pulse and temperature. The nurse complied, thinking it would help prove the truth – that the patient was really and truly alive.

It proved she was not.

Instantly, Mary Elizabeth Marsdensen became a prized scientific specimen, and the world’s most famous woman. She had no pulse, no blood pressure, her temperature varied with the temperature of whatever room she was in.

An EEG, MRI, CT and numerous other members of the medical alphabet confirmed that she had some brain activity, but it was vastly different to normal human brain activity, and that there was, indeed, a lesion, the size of a grape, in her brain. She had no blood circulation, and no other normal bodily functions, except movement, and mysteriously speech even though she wasn’t breathing.

Non-scientists, reading the news the next morning, failed to understand the full import of what was explained, or what it would mean for the future.

Most scientists also missed the importance of the event. Others, like microbiologist Dr Martin Pryce, realised it was of ultimate importance. Dr Pryce contacted the hospital to ask for blood and other samples from Ms Marsdensen, and results of all tests. Then he called his long-time friend and recently-retired colleague Dr Robert Beare to come out of retirement for this major project.

The Pryce-Beare study would be the first of many into the mysterious condition Ms Marsdensen presented at the hospital with that night. It would be a long time before anyone knew just how significant this particular study would be.

At 7am, Nurse Hughes clocked off from his shift. He had a headache. Headache was an understatement. At home he told his wife it felt like fireworks going off in his frontal lobe. And he felt tired, more tired than he ever remembered being. He felt as if every single part of his body was tired. Even his bones felt tired, and he could feel every single tired bone. He had just started to develop an annoying cough.

“Must be the flu that’s going around,” his wife, Marianne, said practically. She kissed him good-bye and left for work at a nearby primary school. By lunchtime, she would start to get a killer headache, too…

Books by Iris, in Paperback and eBook

Patchwork

Patchwork is an anthology of short stories and poems by author and blogger Iris Carden. In this volume, you will deal with the aftermath of a dog bite in Bad Moon Rising, spend a sleepless night with The Possum in the Roof, and investigate a weird religious cult in The Time of Blood and Death. The print version of the book has a bonus story not in the eBook version.

Beside Still Waters

A book of sermons and brief reflections on Christian Scripture, by Rev Iris Carden. There is no specific order to the items in the book, they are intended to each be a "surprise" in that they are not related to the items around them. It is hoped that in each, the reader will find something new or special, or unexpected, a message from God. Rev Iris Carden has a Master's Degree in Theology and more than 10 years of experience as a Christian minister.

Cat-it-orial

Mr Bumpy is such a talented cat, he even runs his own website: mrbumpycat.com. He is a blogger, and a very bad cat. His favourite hobby is world domination. His next hobby is harassing the humans and other animals he shares a home with. In this book, you can see the world through the eyes of a megalomanicat, and some of the other animals who share his home.

Group Meeting

(Novella) In a facility for people recovering from mental illness: a group of people with sinister pasts starts to be visited by a girl who doesn't exist.

Karlee

Failing author Terry Dixon is made an offer that seems unbelievable. He can have all of his problems solved, have everything he has ever wanted, for a price. The price is something that "will not be too difficult" for him to pay - but it is not specified what it actually will be. With bills mounting up and a deadline looming, Terry agrees to a deal with something he knows nothing about.

About the author

Iris Carden is a retired Uniting Church minister and former journalist. Lupus forced her to stop working. On good days she writes.

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A short story is a slice of life, or a moment in time. I love to tell stories. If you've got a few minutes spare in your busy day, let's share a piece of short fiction.

Note to other indie authors

I do reviews of books by indie authors.

Usually these are books I have bought, but if you would particularly like to have me review your book, please email me a copy at iris@sometimesitislupus.com . Please note, I can't guarantee a favourable review.

I'm also interested in expanding to publishing other authors' work on this blog - if you have a short story, or a chapter of an upcoming book you would like to promote, that you'd like published here, please email it to me for consideration. At the moment, I can't afford to pay for submissions, but hopefully, that will change over time.